


Of Rings and Trashy TV Shows

by respoftw



Series: Tumblr Prompts - Hawksilver edition [59]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Happy Ending, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-23
Updated: 2015-08-23
Packaged: 2018-04-16 19:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4637973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>anonymous asked:</p>
<p>Pietro was going to ask Clint to marry him, but he overhears something wrongly and thinks Clint is going to leave him - so he decides to leave something explaining his decision and leaves first.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Rings and Trashy TV Shows

Pietro remembers the officer handing him the rumpled envelope as they were herded into the car that would take them to the first of many foster homes. He remembers that the envelope had been used, the address of the police station written on the front in a spidery font that Wanda's tears soon caused to spread until illegible, the hastily wrapped sticky tape that held it all together as if it didn't contain the most precious thing in the world.

 

The wedding rings that belonged to their parents.

 

No matter how tough times got after that, the rings remained in the twins possession, cherished, loved and idolized.

 

Pietro remembers sitting on his bed at the latest group home, staring at his mother's ring as he worried it in his hand, trying to imagine it ever resting on his partner's finger and failing.

 

Pietro remembers the moment when Wanda closed her small hand over his and gently took the ring from him, exchanging it for their fathers with a reassuring squeeze.

 

Pietro remembers the relief that coursed through him when he could easily imagine this ring, wider, more masculine, more...right, on his partner's finger.

 

For the longest time that partner was nameless, faceless and formless. Not much more than a vague impression of strength and warmth and stubble. Until Clint.

 

Clint Barton with his sarcasm and his stupid reliance on a weapon best suited to the middle ages, this is who Pietro now imagined wearing his father's ring one day.

 

Clint Barton is also the person who had just ripped out Pietro's heart and stomped all over it.

 

Of all the things that would herald the end of their relationship, a _Say Yes To The Dress_ marathon was the last thing that Pietro expected to sound the death knell. Yet, hearing Clint scoff and say that a wedding was his idea of hell and that no way was he ever going to go through that felt worse than bullets tearing through his flesh, a feeling Pietro was unfortunately familiar with.

 

He had sat through the rest of the episodes in a haze, ignoring the concerned prods at his mind coming from Wanda, as he tried to process the fact that Clint didn't want a wedding, a future, didn't want _him_.

 

He had shuffled through the rest of the evening on autopilot, speaking when spoken to, eating what was put in front of him, laughing when others laughed, numb to everything. As Clint snored gently in their bed that night, puffs of air tickling at Pietro's neck as he breathed, Pietro knew he couldn't go on. Call him a foolish romantic, or a naïve kid, he wanted the whole package. He looked at Clint and saw marriage, a home, kids, grand-kids, he saw everything his own parents never got the chance to have. He couldn't, _wouldn't_ , settle for less than that.

 

Slipping out of their bed, _Clint's bed now_ , he supposed, Pietro took advantage of his speed to move his things back to his old room in no time at all until all that was left was the ring, tucked away in the corner of his bedside cabinet. For so long he's imagined this ring on Clint's finger, it's hard now to imagine ever wanting someone else to wear it. At some point, it had stopped being his father's ring and started being _Clint's_ ring. With one last, longing look at the future he couldn't have, Pietro left.

 

*

 

“What the hell do you think you're doing?”

 

Pietro blinks awake, blearily, feeling wrung out and tired, to find a furious Clint yelling at him and waving a torn envelope in his face.

 

“ _You're sorry? You have to go?”_ Clint parrots the lines of Pietro's note back at him with fury. “ _Oh, and by the way, here's my dead Dad's ring that I was going to give you, it's yours now_? What the fuck, Pietro?”

 

Clint is trembling with rage, and some other emotion that almost looks like betrayal. Although that wouldn't make sense, Pietro thinks. Not when Clint wasn't in this for the long haul. Not when Clint had explicitly said just yesterday that he couldn't think of anything worse than suffering through a wedding.

 

“No, I don't want a stupid wedding!” Clint shouts at him, Pietro having evidently being sleep-addled enough to have spoken his thought aloud. “But that doesn't mean I don't want a marriage. It doesn't mean that I don't want you.” The anger dissipates until all that's left is a haggard looking Clint who slumps down to sit on the edge of Pietro's far too big bed. 

 

“You're an idiot, kid.” Clint's hand reaches out to take hold of Pietro's own and Pietro can feel the familiar weight of the plain silver ring against his skin. 

 

“You're wearing the ring?”

 

“Well, you did say it was mine.”

 

“It fits OK?”

 

“Perfectly.”

 

“Does this mean...?”

 

Clint snorts. “Not until you move your crap back to our room and ask me properly but, yes. Idiot. Just...no big wedding. Me, you, Wanda, Nat and that's it. OK?”

 

Pietro nods quickly, squeezing Clint's hand tightly, his throat feeling too tight to speak.

 

He's never watching Say Yes To The Dress again.


End file.
